Evangelistic Work
EVANGELISTIC WORK
Bishop Festo Olang arrived in Coimbatore on Friday, November 29, 1957, and spent three days with us.
He had been invited by the Church of India to visit the churches in this country. He preached in Christ Church, Coimbatore, on Sunday morning and took part in five Fellowship Meetings. We were greatly impressed by his simple and clear exposition of passages from the Bible with illustrations here and there from everyday life.
It was evident that he had studied the Bible diligently.
Bishop Olang told me the story of his life.
As a boy of twelve I was converted to Christianity from the African religion.
I was working as a teacher in a C.M.S.
Boys' School, which had one hundred and forty boarders.
A team of eight persons, including Dr Joe Church and the Rev. Eric Sabiti, held a week's Mission in the school in 1938.
I was convicted of sin but did not go forward for fear of what the school might think of me.
When a fire is kindled heavy logs take a long time to burn.
I was one of those heavy logs, stubborn and unwilling to be lit.
But in the following year I was converted and joined the Revival Movement.
I received my theological training, first in St Paul's Diocesan Divinity Schoo] at Limuru in Africa for two years and later, in Wycliffe Hall at Oxford for one year.
I was ordained priest in 1950 in the Diocese of Mombasa.
I was consecrated Bishop by the Archbishop of Canterbury, as the, Diocese of Mombasa was under him.
The consecration took place in the Namirembe Cathedral (literally the Cathedral of Peace) in Kampala, Uganda.
Four African Bishops were consecrated in that service.
All of us had been influenced by the Revival Movement.
This was a very impressive service.
Bishop Festo Olang won the affection of our people by his kind and gentle manners.
He told us about his wife, 'the person
A. J. APPASAMY
he loved most in the world.'
He told us that they had eleven children, whose pictures he carried about with him. Some of our people were quite amused when he took a little time to remember the name of one of his children!
He was very friendly and goodhumoured and mingled quite freely with all of us.
It -was, of course, a great experience for us to come in close contact with a fellow-Christian from a distant land.
The Christian Church is really an immense family, spread over the whole world.
_ Bishop Olang told me about the Revival Movement which took place in the Diocese of Mombasa in Kenya.
The Diocesan Bishop lived in Nairobi.
Bishop Olang as Assistant Bishop had his headquarters at Maseno, situated beautifully on the edge of the immense fresh water lake, Lake Victoria.
The Bishop said:
I can speak with confidence only about the work in my own area, in and around Maseno.
Every Saturday morning there was a Fellowship meeting in the important centres.
It lasted for about two hours and brought together men and women belonging to various denominations—the Anglicans, the Presbyterians, the. Methodists and the Pentecostalists.
After a hymn, prayers were offered and two or three messages were given from the Bible by different people as they were led by the Holy Spirit.
Then there was a time for sharing.
People gave testimonies as to what the Lord had done for them, particularly during the last few days.
If they had any problems or difficulties, they put them before the group and asked for its advice.
The Africans had lovely voices and there was enthusiastic chorus singing from time to time.
About two hundred people gathered in this way every Saturday.
Once a month there was a Fellowship Meeting, also on a Saturday morning, for people from all over the area.
IE there was a special event such as the visit of a guest speaker, as many as three thousand people might assemble, travelling at their own expense and making their own arrangements about food.
These meetings were also very informal, without any fixed programme, people taking part in them as they were led by God.
These larger Fellowship Meetings also were interdenominational, though the Anglicans might be in a majority.
Everyone was welcome.
People
EVANGELISTIC WORK
who had no spiritual experience were not forbidden. They were allowed to attend in the hope that God the Holy Spirit might work in their hearts and minds.
Bishop Olang stressed the need for the Church authorities to be sympathetic to these groups of enthusiastic Christians, drawn from many different backgrounds and with many different experiences.
'If the work of these Fellowship Groups is dealt with critically, there is a real danger of their going away from the Church and forming separatist groups of their own.
The fact that some of the Bishops now consecrated in East Africa have themselves passed through a spiritual awakening enables us to deal sympathetically with such Fellowship Groups.
Whenever I was free, I attended the Fellowship Meetings, but not as a Bishop.
. I was a brother among brethren of various Churches.'
God works in different countries and in different ages in different ways.
We need not. necessarily follow all the methods they followed in East Africa, But the African experience showed clearly the need for special meetings in addition to the usual Church services.
In such meetings those who were spiritually awakened had many opportunities for informal fellowship and_ spiritual growth.
The Vellore Evangelistic Council invited me to give a course of three addresses in March 1955 to non-Christians.
My subjects were: (1) Do we need to believe in God today?
(2) What is the nature of God?
(3) How should we worship .
God?
An Indian Presbyter asked me: 'Is God interested in social and economic equality among people?
How do we know that He is so interested?
What is the Christian teaching on this subject?'
Another Indian Presbyter came to me and said to me.
"You say the Holy Spirit is working in the minds of men today.
Why should we not believe that the plea which many communist leaders are making for social and economic equality is really the work of the Holy Spirit?
Would it not be good for us to accept the fact that these men are led by God?
By doing so, we shall bring into the Church all their zeal for social righteousness.'
In my addresses in Vellore I tried to answer these questions.
The Vellore Evangelistic Council planned to run similar courses once every few months and the Christians were urged to bring
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their non-Christian friends to the meetings which were held in Cobb Hall in the Voorheese College.
The organizers expected about one hundred non-Christians to attend.
The first two addresses were given in Tamil.
On the last night the address had to be given in English (with a brief summary in Tamil at the end) as there was a large contingent from the Christian Medical College, both staff and students, a great proportion of whom did not know
Tamil.
God sent many evangelists to help us in the Coimbatore Diocese.
They came from many countries and from different backgrounds.
Edwin Orr was one of them.
We became friends.
When his publisher asked me to write the story of his life I gladly agreed, as his life is full of faith, adventure and travel.
He saw the vision of a revived Church and preached this message all over the world for thirty-five years.
He is continually growing in intellectual and spiritual stature.
He came to realise that it is necessary to reach the intellectual classes, the university students and professors and win them for Christ.
Today when science has made vast advances there are millions of people who have no use for religion and who do not believe in God or prayer or the Bible.
They think that modern scientific thought has made belief in them unnecessary or impossible.
So Edwin Orr began to give what he called pre-evangelistic addresses.
We had arranged for Dr Orr a public meeting every night and a prayer meeting every morning in Coimbatore for a fortnight in 1958. When he arrived he expressed a great concern for the young people in the colleges.
More meetings were quickly arranged in four of the colleges—the Government Arts College, the P.S.G.
Arts College, the Government Polytechnic and the Government College of Technology.
In the P.S.G. Arts College his audience was small.
In the other three colleges he had three or four hundred students to speak to.
His doctor's degree from Oxford University was of great help when these meetings were arranged.
He taught with a wealth of argument and illustration that there is a God.
Dr Orr's approach rivetted the attention of his student audiences.
He gave another address to a large audience of college students engaged in Social Service.
He invited his student audiences to attend his mass meetings in the Stadium to — the Gospel message and hundreds of them came there.
EVANGELISTIC WORK
The Presbyters and the people of the Holy Trinity Church, Ootacamund, made widespread evangelistic efforts in connection with the centenary celebrations of their church from rst April to 2oth April 1958.
They said, "We would like to preach the Gospel in a hundred villages.
We would like to baptise a hundred new Christians.
We would like to present for Confirmation a hundred candidates, both young and old.
We would like to give our thank-offerings to the church in hundreds—a hundred rupees if we can afford it or a hundred four-anna pieces or at least a hundred one annas.'
I was very glad they thought of these things rather than of garden parties and fire-works!
The Rev. Gell Knight was the Presbyter in charge of that church.
He had worked in the Dornakal Diocese as an Indian Missionary for twenty years under Bishop Azariah and was full of evangelistic zeal.
As preparation for the celebration, the Church Committee decided that the church bell should be rung every morning at 5.30 from the first of September 1957.
A few waited in front of the altar before the throne of grace for blessings during the centenary celebration and after it.
Meditation on the Passion of our Lord, adoration of the Crucified One, intercessions for the people of Ooty Taluk, the consecration of ourselves individually and as a church for God's work here on earth, were the purpose of the early morning devotions.
On Sundays, a short Morning Service was sung at that time.
This early morning watch was a great blessing to many.
A saint has sung:
Oh the pure delight of a single hour Which before thy throne I spend When I kneel in Prayer and with Thee my God
I commune as friend with Friend.
'The cool still air, the chirping of early birds and the dawn of the morning Star added joy to these morning prayers', wrote
Gell Knight in the report he sent to me, For twenty days in April there were many varied and interesting services and meetings which were enthusiastically attended by large crowds.
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On December 13th, eight months after the centenary celebration, I drove to Ootacamund, a distance of fifty-six miles from Coimbatore, to examine some of the new converts and to confirm them on the following day.
The car was delayed and I was late by an hour but the two Presbyters and the ten confirmation. candidates were patiently waiting in the cold and empty Holy Trinity
Church until I reached it at 6 p.m.
Thirty-one persons (including four Hindu families) were baptised on April 13 and some of them had now been prepared for Confirmation.
The group I met in Holy Trinity Church on that day was quite interesting.
They were ordinary folk engaged in such simple tasks as chopping wood or doing ayah's work.
They were illiterate but alert.
They knew by heart the Lord's Prayer and the Creed.
They sang well the Christian hymns which had been taught to them.
I rejoiced that I had made that journey to meet these simple men and women who were starting out on their Christian pilgrimage.
Their Presbyter writes about them:
The changed life of these adults who were baptised gives us great joy.
Before Baptism they did their work shabbily, quarrelling with house-wives when they wanted the wood to be chopped in smaller pieces.
They refused to chop knotted wood, but after Baptism they calmly and peacefully did their jobs, even cutting to pieces knotted wood.
On a later occasion I visited St John's Church at Kandal There was much excitement in the congregation as this was the first time a Bishop had come to that small church which belonged to the parish of Holy Trinity Church, Ootacamund.
I saw many stirrings of new life in that congregation.
A new church bell had been bought.
The building had been repaired and whitewashed. The church was filled with devout worshippers, many of them having been recently baptised and confirmed.
It moved me to see all these signs of new life.
The Gospel was preached to men of all communities and castes in and around Ootacamund.
But the people who responded were, as in all ages, from the most backward classes.
It was significant
EVANGELISTIC WORK
that in spite of the various kinds of economic help which the Indian Government was giving, men and women of the backward communities were still eager to join the Christian Church with its many opportunities for equality and brotherhood.
Ootacamund was one of the places where the Revival took deep root.
Many of the Indian Presbyters, English missionaries _and the other diocesan workers in the town came profoundly under its influence.
Some of them were people of vision and energy:
There were also some active and keen Lay Preachers.
A young men's group set the pace for the grown-up folk.
This group met twice a week regularly—once for prayer and the other time for Bible study.
They were always ready for whatever active service was asked of them.
The call for evangelistic work spread through seven months met with a generous response from the church people.
Many of them spent their hard-earned leisure during week ends for visiting villages which were often not easily accessible.
This vast land can only be evangelised properly when every congregation takes seriously its responsibility for the people in whose midst they live.
The news of God's doings in the Coimbatore Diocese spread widely.
I was asked to give courses of addresses in various places, which I did.
I preached in the Bangalore and Medak Cathedrals; the Madurai Diocesan meetings; the North Kerala Diocesan meetings; meetings at Poona and the Spiritual Life Centre, Nasrapur.
An unforgettable occasion was the Maramon Convention in February 1954.
To this vast gathering of the Mar Thoma Syrian Church as many as fifty thousand people came and many of them were keenly interested in hearing about a spiritual awakening in a neighbouring diocese.
This immense assembly sat on the sands of a dry river bed and as I spoke I could see the waters gleaming at a distance over the heads of the people. A temporary booth of plaited cocoanut palm leaves was put up by the different parishes working together.
Quite a technique had been perfected for putting up the booth year after year with a minimum of expense. The huge congregation (including the children) had been trained by the priests to listen quietly during the long hours of the meetings.
In all these addresses I emphasised that God the Holy Spirit is ever active and willing to help but people must be ready. 'There are seasons of new life in the Church.
The monsoon does not